THE NEW YORKER without characters save of the most nebulous sort. It is not embellished by the smallest comment upon humans or their gods. No subtleties lie within it, no wit, no pungent flavor of a cunning mind at work. In short, it is a disap- pointing product from able hands: a prose lyric that is spongy, feeble, and, above all, dull. Ten years was too long a rest for the author of "South Wind." I T is very rare indeed that the pri- vate soul of a literary genius is so openly exposed as that of Joseph Con- rad is found to be in his letters to Ed- ward Garnett. Mr. Garnett was Conrad's literary father. He literally spanked the mystic seaman until the books we love so well came groaning forth. During the thirty years of this parenthood-which lasted until Con- rad's death-innumerable letters passed between them, and it is the Conrad side of this correspondence which now finds itself between book covers. What an amazing document they make! What an autobiography! For in addition to a fundamental naïveté where himself was concerned, Conrad had an unusual capacity for getting his thoughts about himself down upon paper. Perhaps nobody ever strug- gled as bitterly over the writing of books as he. Perhaps nobody ever re- alized the nature of this struggle more poignantly than he himself realized it. Through page after page of these let- ters to his adviser, he poured out his heart with characteristically Slavic frankness. In every letter, one finds such broken cries as these: "I've been living in a kind of trance from which I am only waking up now to a sober existence. And it appears to me that I will never write anything worth reading. . . . Is the writing utter bosh? I doubt the sincerity of my own impressions. . . . I dream for hours, hours, over a sentence and even then can't put it together so as to satisfy the cravings of my soul. . . . I am para- lyzed by doubt and have just sense enough to feel the agony but am pow- erless to invent a way out of it. I have had bad moments with 'The Outcast' but never anything so ghastly, nothing half so hopeless. I ask myself whether I am breaking up mentally. I am afraid of it. . . . I always told you I was a kind of inspired humbug." He understood, with almost maso- chistic vividness, the pain that his labor was giving him. He groaned and sweated in his despair. And he wrote it all down in his letters to Mr. Gar- 103 Are you smoking cigars that call for a smoking"Den" like this , ; , ; . ; . ..jtr ' ; --I , : , @ I:; ...). '00 ! :..;. .,;.:,..(< ::,: ..: :. \; f' N: '" '; :it,,:;{ .:, & : . ....,:::""'. ..... -....:.:-.;. '.i . :.;f..' ." (.' t.. -\ ':':.:4-0.. ,*; . :="" ",/l':-' J^J. ..t/.- .;.. l::"" .. þ J . ' :'\ ': \-<' ;: ."'" f' .'..". .', , .' << . " "", '$," , , . . ," , ' :,: . . . , . . ;1 . , .' . ' ., ' , ' . ' . .. ' , ; , ; ., :: , ' . '. ,Y.:.. \. ,.4.c i 00 """ ; :. ,_. :':'.' "'- . J t Á}...,4t ...-:, .t 1$ . ' l ,..:: .:("00 :\ , ^ : 1 " "-'" ik <l/.' 1IW": 0/4 ,U ,j . ," '1 v, '>,;., , ",of .... """-... or., " , " .. .., " . y- . ,of:, , 4 '" :.. , ' "'''' , ..,. '" ,.., '.,<.< ". <c,' ., " t' 00 r-J: f /î;;i;;:}l; " f :: ' , :. 1 i : ;7: ::; Iß.}Jlï .fft : -l- :: t. f 'HE Sultan in his throne room? .'t Not at all. _ I. Just a snappy citizen of the 90' s In his .V,*'i- smoking den. . . and in his glory. The swollen pillows, and the hanging what-nots and the assorted Ottoman accessories have long been gathering dust in the attic. . . but surprisingly, you still see men smoking the kind of cigars so popular then. Cigars that matched the heavy furnishings, the beefsteak breakfasts, the swelling waistlines of thirty years ago. But your fit, slim-waisted man of 1928, who pre- fers walnut-panels to red plush also prefers cigars of the Haddon Hall type. Mild as a long, cool summer drink, but mellow and flavorful as its basic ingre- dient. Smooth and sweet down to the last lingering puff. Nearly every good tobacconist on this well-known island can provide you with Hadoon Halls. All sizes; all shapes. D. Emil Klein Co., New York. ....-.... * ......... ;.-= lIaddon 1-tall Ctgors